Fresh Prince

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ANNALS OF POWER about Robert Greene and his book “The 48 Laws of Power,” which is popular among the hip-hop crowd… The first law of power, as set forth by Green, is “Never Outshine the Master.” The first law has achieved special resonance in the hip-hop community, which has adopted Greene's book as a hallowed text, and Greene himself as a kind of sage. The rapper Busta Rhymes describes how Greene's book helped handle a production executive on the film “Halloween: Resurrection.”… Greene is 47 years old and lives in Los Angeles. He began writing “The 48 Laws” after having held, by his count, eighty jobs. The book has sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S.… Describes a meeting between Greene and the rapper 50 Cent, who wants to collaborate with Greene on a street version of “The 48 Laws.”… Greene was a good student and something of a loner. He went to Berkeley and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin to study Ancient Greek. Tells about his attempts to become a screenwriter and then a playwright. Greene spent much of his twenties living in Europe. In Paris, he learned to appreciate the seduction game. Tells about his book “The Art of Seduction.” Greene comes across as both reserved and sincere, a canny question-asker and embarrassment-revealer-a regular guy. He professes not to be a practitioner of his own power rules… While in New York, Greene stayed in one of several apartments belonging to Dov Charney, who owns American Apparel. Charney compares Greene to Isaac Newton… Tells about the history of the self-help genre, from Aristotle, though Samuel Smiles, to Dale Carnegie… Quincy Jones III, the son of the music producer, is making a documentary about “The 48 Laws” and their ubiquity in the “urban realm.” “I view it more as an empowerment tool than as a way to screw people.”… Another of Greene's friends is Karrine Steffens, a.k.a. Superhead, who slept with a host of hip-hop celebrities and then wrote a book about them, “Confessions of a Video Vixen.” Tells about Greene's relationship with Joost Elffers, who acted as a mentor and literary agent to Greene when he was writing “The 48 Laws.” Originally, Greene wrote 52 laws, but the publishers felt that 52 was not a good number… Greene has several new books in mind: a unified theory of power, seduction, and war and one on the idea of the sublime. He is also eager to get into politics. “I'd like to be the Karl Rove of the Democratic Party,” Greene said. Tells about a party Greene attended for the release of the new album by Ludacris.